Category Archives: Switching to Macs

This is Part Two of “Why We Went Mac, and Have Never Looked Back….”, a Guest Post by my friend, Randy Juip, which explains why his former firm converted to Macs. If you want to read Part One of his Guest Post, which addressed their firm’s hardware considerations, click here. Otherwise, I hope that you enjoy Part Two:

Software, Calendar, Mail and Other Stuff

We purchased a copy of Microsoft Office for Mac 2008 for each station, which provided us with the basic software necessities — word processing and spreadsheet mainly. If you keep your eyes open, you can pick up copies of this software on discount from time to time. Since I prefer to use Apple’s iWork suite (Pages, Numbers, and Keynote), my partner and I have copies of that software as well.

To work and play well with the Federal Court ECF system, we use Mozilla’s Firefox 4.0 browser instead of Safari as our default browser. I use a neat little add-on called X-Marks to sync my Firefox bookmarks to Safari (which, in turn, syncs my bookmarks to Mobile Me). The process is then repeated in reverse at home.

Each employee has a MobileMe account, which was a simple, efficient, and quick solution to our remote access and mail needs. We use Mail for our email and iCal for our Calendar. To make the calendars work nicely with each other, we invested in BusySync licenses at each station — this software allows us to share iCal calendars over our local area network (LAN) without needing to set up a server or the like. I understand that the publisher of BusySync has recently released a replacement program, BusyCal, which supposedly does even more amazing stuff. However, BusySync is working so well for us now and I really don’t see the need to fix something that doesn’t need fixing.

So what’s the other stuff? For me, it’s all the other programs that I use to make my life easier. I have come to rely on DataViz’s MacLinkPlus Deluxe for converting old WordPerfect files into Word Files. I am committing myself, more and more each day, to integrate Evernote into my workflow. I can not live without DropBox, which I’ve had for years. In my mind, DropBox is the single greatest utility ever created, and I frankly can’t understand people who still use thumb drives. Really.

Backup and Networking

One point which I think deserves some discussion is Time Machine. This may be preaching to the choir, but I can not tell you what a frustration computer security and back up in a PC environment can be. I’m not speaking about any firm in particular, but any PC environment — through a combination of technological ignorance, bad habits and practices, and inherent flaws in the Windows system — is asking for expensive IT support. I know firms that spend, literally, thousands upon thousands of dollars every year on security, firewalls, and, of course, IT support to rebuild and restore affected systems. This is a near constant headache, and for a sole practitioner or small-firm attorney, is not financially sound management.

It’s odd, then, that many older generation attorneys insist on PC’s over Macs, especially when they’re the least capable of dealing with the constant onslaught of PC-specific malware. “Yeah, Macs are nice,” an older Judge told me a this year’s ABA TechShow, “but at some point you have to grow up and get a PC.” Whatever.

Each of my key workstations has a 500GB or 1TB external drive attached to it locally for hourly time machine back ups. Our central file storage server is a Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ which has 4x1TB drives with RAID, so we have 2.7TB of effective central file storage which is mechanically secure. If one HDD fails, I can hot-swap it for another, and the entirety of our data is unaffected. It’s small, quiet, and powerful for our purposes. I understand that Netgear’s ReadyNAS Pro is even faster, with more RAM and Gigabit ethernet, but to date, our office has not run into any disconcerting issues in that regard.

Our mission-critical documents and files, in turn, are backed-up offsite using Mozy, which I’m not totally satisfied happy with, but which does the job. We chose Mozy over other worthy competitors (like Carbonite) due to Mozy’s support for Networked Attached Storage.

Time Machine, RAID in the ReadyNAS, and Mozy — all of this means, to me, that I really don’t spend much time thinking about Viruses, Malware, etc… I don’t know if some crazy 13 year old is holed-up in his parent’s basement working on a blockbuster Mac virus or not, but what I do know is that if we get it, we’ll just rewind things an hour or two using Time Machine and our offline backup. Don’t misunderstand me — I’m not completely unconcerned, but the worst case scenario is really not that bad with a Mac.

The Other Benefits

Aside from the Mac’s unmatched business functionality, it’s aesthetics, and it’s reliability, there are a number of other benefits to Mac users. If you use a Mac in your personal life you already know that the iLife programs — iMovie, iPhoto, iTunes, etc… — are must-haves. The integration of your business life and your personal life is just one added benefit to taking your office Mac.

Don’t forget, either, the iPhone and the iPad. I hope it’s safe to say that the iPhone has established itself as the go-to smartphone for busy professionals. It seems to me that people who use other smartphones either don’t know better, are too close-minded to consider the alternatives, or more likely, have no choice. I don’t want to dismiss the alternatives out of hand — everyone likes competition, but its clear that the iPhone competitors are trying hard to emulate the iPhone’s appeal, design, and capability.

And, no one even knows how the iPad will infiltrate our workflows and professional lives, but the smart money is that it will, in a big way. Although PC’s can integrate with iPhone and iPad, they don’t do it as seamlessly or as nicely as a Mac does.

In the End…

The short of it is this — I can’t tell you how simple my and my practice manager’s jobs are not having to worry about the technology in the office. Our technology does what it is supposed to do — it works and lets us work to serve our clients. We don’t spend valuable time working on getting out

technology to work. While there have been a few headaches, are significant only in that they are the exception, not the rule.

To each their own, I think. There are so many close-minded attorneys out there, who don’t understand how Intel chips forever changed Macs into business-friendly machines; but they’ll never get it. For my part, you should not hesitate, even for a second, to take your firm Mac. Besides, people will think you’re cooler then.

Randall A. Juip is now a partner with Foley, Baron, Metzger & Juip, PLLC, and he focuses his practice on professional negligence defense, business litigation, civil rights law, and public relations work (including risk management, crisis management, and public representation).

My friend, Randy Juip, has written a two-part Guest Post explaining in depth why his firm converted to Macs. He was also a guest on an upcoming edition of the MILO Weekly podcast discussing this same subject. I am pleased to present Part One of his Guest Post, “Why We Went Mac, and Have Never Looked Back….”:

So many firms are locked into legacy systems — they have PC’s, and so they continue to buy PC’s, almost without thought or consideration to the alternatives.

But I was lucky. When I opened my firm in July of 2009, I was starting from scratch. This was a totally new firm; the logistics were almost overwhelming. We would need everything, from trash bins to desks, and from staplers to computers. Taking time off from selecting legal pads and chair mats, one of the more interesting questions was also one of the easiest to answer: Mac or PC? Since I’ve always loved Macs, it was easy to go in that direction. We’ve never looked back.

The PC Consideration

So yes, PC’s are cheaper out of the box. And cost was a factor. We priced a number of different PC systems, from custom-built boxes to ordering the whole lot from Dell. It turns out that the savings — not counting valuable, billable time — was measurable but not as compelling as one would expect.

There were a number of considerations that lead us away from PC’s. First was the sheer technological hurdle of setting up and running a PC-based office. Macs are easy easy to set up and easy to network. You don’t have to spend hours adding available printers or copiers with a Mac. With a PC environment, on the other hand, our fear was that we’d spend much of our critical first-month start-up time babysitting fragile network settings. Macs just work, PC’s aren’t really that easy.

Second, we didn’t want to have a PC firm. PC’s are notorious for “gunking up,” for not working as well as they should, for needing constant attention and diligence to make everything work right. My partner and I knew from our own experience that running a firm from Macs would avoid these hassles.

Third, we are a young firm. We’re clever, and technologically savvy. We rely on email, PDF conversions, electronic records, and computers in general much more than our competitors. I had used PowerPoint (and now Keynote) for trials long before other attorneys began utilizing such things. “Going Mac” would fit in with the image we wanted to portray. It just made sense.

So, everyone at the office is now on one of two set-ups:

The MacBook Pro Set-Up

My partner and I, as well as our office manager, are on MacBook Pros (various models, but a minimum of 4GB RAM). The important consideration for us was making sure that the MBP had enough Video RAM to run an external monitor without choking on it. For docking and/or desk space, I have my MBP nestled in one of twelvesouth’s BookArc stands. They’re really sharp, and help not only display the sharp design, but to cool the MBP while it’s processing. I am waiting eagerly for HengeDock’s new product — a base that you will slip a MBP into and out of, with all the connections available at all times. I understand that they have availability for 13” MacBooks and MBP’s, but not for the 15” and 17” models (yet).

For the external display, we selected Dell 24” G2410t monitors. They’re beautiful, accept an external arm mount on the back, and are generally well-reviewed (although I understand they’ve been discontinued by Dell — too bad!). Also, they are very affordable — if you don’t mind buying on eBay.

These monitors are mounted using Ergotron’s LX monitor arms, which are not only sleek and stylish, but have support for multiple-monitorconfigurations. You know, in case we want to do that… The Ergotron LX, again, can be found very affordably on eBay. I have really appreciated the flexibility of this arrangement — especially on heavy drafting days. Moving the monitor in and out, closer and further from my face is a luxury I don’t know if I could now do without.

Lastly, for input, I use the Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad — I can’t tolerate the smaller keyboards without the number pad. They just don’t work for me. Being old-school, I also am partial to the original wired Mighty Mouse, which is no longer available from Apple. My partner believes that I’m crazy, as he’s devoted to the Apple Wireless Keyboard and the new-model Apple Magic Mouse. Our office manager likes a generic PC USB Keyboard and a generic PC USB Mouse. I suppose everyone will have their own preferences for input.

With this set-up, there are also the peripherals…. Each MBP needs an adapter (like the Micro-DVI to DVI adapter sold by Apple) to connect the external monitor. I bought a USB extender cable to snake up through the Ergotron arm so I could have my USB keyboard cable not drape across my desk. Each computer, as well, has a 1TB External Drive (I have grown attached to the reliability and aesthetics of Fantom Drives’ GreenDrive) attached (either by USB or by Firewire, depending on the set-up) for use as a Time Machine disk.

The iMac Set-Up

The support staff and associates have 24” iMacs. We bought these refurbished from the Apple web site, and purchased an AppleCare package for each of them. We were fortunate that Apple had enough of the refurbished models in stock when we needed them; it’s sometimes hit or miss when buying refurbished from the Apple site.

My office manager and support staff, along with some of the associates, were concerned about the switch from PCs to Macs, and with “relearning” the everyday workflow of a new OS. However, when they saw the difference between the old 15” CRT monitors they were used to, and the beauty and size of the new 24” iMac display, much of this concern was alleviated. We had already transitioned away from Corel’s dreaded Word Perfect word processor to Microsoft Word and the Office suite, so there wasn’t much to learn there. And, once the staff learned to integrate spotlight, quicklook, and the dozens of other helpful Mac shortcuts into their workflow, everyone — every single employee of mine — agrees that they are more productive and happier using Macs than using the old PC’s.

There’s not much more to say about these set-ups. They make work easy and employees happy, and what more could one want?

Randall A. Juip is now a partner with Foley, Baron, Metzger & Juip, PLLC, and he focuses his practice on professional negligence defense, business litigation, civil rights law, and public relations work (including risk management, crisis management, and public representation).

It’s a war of sorts, one that is fought on the field of technology. And from the look of things, Apple seems to be emerging the clear winner in the battle for supremacy between Mac and Windows. But opinions differ, and there are those who would swear by Microsoft because the company’s reach is far and wide. So why would you want to go with a Mac from Apple if you’re buying a PC? Because:

Apple is a pioneer in technology. It is arguably the first to come out with innovative and revolutionary products, and you don’t have to look beyond the iPod to prove the veracity of this statement.

Apple products are less likely to be hit by viruses. The software is good no doubt, but what’s more important is that the hackers are after the larger target, the population that uses Windows, and so are not too inclined to write virus code for the Mac.

According to the official Apple website, the best reason to buy a Mac is because “the hardware and software are made by the same company”. So in essence, everything is compatible and works like a charm. If you’ve ever used Windows and been faced with error messages that tell you that XYZ device needs a driver, you’ll appreciate this advantage in Apple.

Brand Apple stands for quality today; when you buy an Apple, you know you don’t have to be worried about slipshod quality or haphazard software that is riddled with bugs.

Apple’s revolutionary GUI is a work of art to be admired – the design is clean and stylish and conducive to efficient usage.

Apple now offers you the ability to dual boot with both Windows and its innovative Unix based operating system OS X.

Yes, the products are slightly more expensive than those offered by the competition, but Apple more than makes up for this disadvantage in the form of reliability and quality.

OS X is reliable and does not crash like its Windows counterparts do. Just ask anyone who’s torn their hair out in frustration after dealing with the BSD (blue screen of death) or Windows Vista.

Once an Apple fan, always an Apple fan – you’ll never go back to Windows after the great functionality that the Mac offers.

And to end on a less serious and more frivolous note – if you want style and penance and substance as well, an Apple product is your best bet; the snazzy colors and funky designs should be proof enough of this.

It used to be the only apples found in the law office were in lunch bags. No longer: the resurgence of the Apple Macintosh platform has led to many attorneys now practicing law on their Macs. Popular Mac attorneys and bloggers Ben Stevens and David Sparks discussed the Macintosh platform at ABA TECHSHOW 2009 in their session "Got Apple Envy? Practicing Law with a Mac."

David and Ben provided a convincing argument about why using a Mac for the practice of law makes sense, and also shared strategies and recommendations on the best hardware and software solutions for a Mac attorney. Finally, they explained how to successfully drive a Mac in a PC firm with recommendations for networking and file sharing.

The attendees enjoyed an entertaining and educational session. Ben and David will both be back presenting at ABA TECHSHOW 2010. Click here to read David and Ben’s paper!

On Tuesday, TechnoLawyer published "TechnoFeature: Mythbusters: Should Your Law Firm Switch From Windows to Mac?" by Christel Burris. Upon seeing the title, I was interested, particularl since I have written for TechnoLawyer in the past. However, upon reading the article, I was quite disappointed. The article by Ms. Burris, a former receptionist turned technology consultant, did nothing more than regurgitate many long-disproven myths that PC loyalists have used against Macs for years. Further, after seeing the many factual inaccuracies in it, I’m very disappointed that TechnoLawyer would even publish this article. To set the record straight, I present the following response from William L. Wilson, an attorney and MILO member:

An Open Letter to TechnoLawyer

I read Ms. Burris’s article with interest as the title suggested that some of the long-debunked Macintosh myths might be busted for the legal community. I was disappointed to find that Ms. Burris continued to propagate these myths. I am a lone Mac user in a law firm of 13 attorneys with plenty of support staff.

The biggest error in her article was that there are viruses that can infect Mac systems. The list of viruses she provided affect Macs that use the old OS 9. Since Apple moved to OS X, viruses are practically nonexistent. In fact, I do not run any anti-virus software on my MacBook Pro or any of the other Macs I own and use.

Ms. Burris continues her unfair attack by arguing that the Mac is not a secure platform. She is correct that the Mac OS is not 100% secure. Neither is Windows. Human beings are imperfect and software will always have some way that it can be exploited. The question is not whether a contestant was able to surprise people by hacking into a Mac quickly. The question is whether everyday users will experience problems caused by security holes. Microsoft issues a new security patch for Windows on the second Tuesday of each month. Apple releases security patches as soon as the problem is identified and solved. Unfortunately, Ms. Burris left the impression that the Mac OS is less secure than Windows. The fact that trojan horses, viruses, worms and so on regularly infest the Windows world while we Mac owners do not worry about these issues so much speaks for itself.

Ms. Burris also complained that some software was not as robust as other options available on the Windows platform. I do not have the level of experience she does in working with various pieces of legal software, but I can say that VMware Fusion, Parallels Desktop, and other options provide a seamless experience in running Windows applications on my Mac. Our firm uses PracticeMaster and Tabs 3, and I have no problem accessing the software.

Ms. Burris implies that Macs are somehow more prone to hardware failures by citing the example that she once had to replace a dead hard drive in an iMac while she’s had relatively few failures in Dell systems. One cannot logically draw a conclusion from this faulty analogy. With the proper tools and some brief online research for a set of instructions, she could have easily replaced the hard drive herself and upgraded its size at the same time in a few hours (if that). That alone may have been worth the cost of having the repair done under warranty. I have replaced hard drives in Macs and PCs, both laptops and desktops, and have found that they are equally simple.

As for the claim that there’s some software that can’t run on a Mac, with the aforementioned VMware Fusion or Parallels, this claim fails. It is true that the Mac platform lacks some "native" software applications, but with virtual machines running on Mac’s Intel processors, there’s no issue. Sadly, Ms. Burris’s attack on the Mac platform may discourage developers from considering and building more specialized Mac applications.

With respect to efficiency, I can count on one hand the number of times my MacBook Pro has locked up in the past six months. In fact, I only need one finger. One cannot be efficient if the computer has contracted a virus or run into some other problem that continues to plague the Windows platform. The infamous "blue screen of death" is not a ghost of past crashes. Lawyers should consider how often they have their IT specialist come in to fix a problem on the Windows platform. Our IT contractor comes in probably monthly (at a cost that I am not privy to) in order to provide some remedy (most often a virus or similar issue). As he said after one of our attorney’s computers was taken over by a spambot last month, "If you want to avoid this type of problem, you buy a Mac."

There is plenty of room to debate the merits of each platform in the legal world. Ms. Burris flatly concludes that the Mac cannot outperform Windows in a law practice. This may be her opinion, but it shouldn’t be presented as a proven fact. I am hopeful that my rebuttal (which is my opinion) has helped readers see the merits of a system that Ms. Burris has unfairly dismissed.

Description:Until recently, law firms needed PC’s to run their practices. No longer. Scanners, software, printers, are now available to practice law on the Mac, and the iPhone is now a powerful business tool.

Ben Stevens, aka The Mac Lawyer, will get us up to speed on how a firm can transition to Macs for legal work. We’ll answer audience questions, conduct interactive polls, and discuss the latest gear and software for the Mac platform.

For those of you on Twitter, follow our conversation with the hashtag “#rmwebinar”!

Your host will be The Mac Lawyer himself, Ben Stevens:Ben Stevens is a practicing attorney located in Spartanburg, SC. After using Windows machines for over a decade, his office has been all Mac-based since August of 2005. Ben has given presentations on both technology and legal topics at continuing education seminars, and he enjoys speaking on those subjects. Ben’s blog, TheMacLawyer.com, is synonymous with the Mac legal movement as is the Google Group he co-created, Macs In Law Offices (MILO). Ben is also a co-host of the MILO podcast.

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

Larry Port from Rocket Matter and I will be conducting a free webinar next Thursday, May 21, 2009, at 3:00 p.m. entitled Using Macs in Your Law Firm. The webinar description is listed below. I hope that you can attend, and if you are interested, you can register by clicking HERE.

Until recently, law firms needed PC’s to run their practices. No longer. Scanners, software, printers, are now available to practice law on the Mac, and the iPhone is now a powerful business tool.

Ben Stevens, aka The Mac Lawyer, will get us up to speed on how a firm can transition to Macs for legal work. We’ll answer audience questions, conduct interactive polls, and discuss the latest gear and software for the Mac platform.

You are probably familiar with TechnoLawyer and the insightful, helpful information that it provides each week to attorneys. One of its key components is TechnoFeature, a weekly newsletter containing in-depth articles written by leading legal technology and practice management experts.

This week’s TechnoFeature was my article, "Should You Switch to Macs in Your Law Firm?" You can download a copy of my article in *.pdf format by clicking HERE. I hope that you find this article helpful, especially if you are considering making the switch from PC to Macs in your law office.

The March 2009 edition of Mac | Life magazine featured an article explaining 10 Reasons Your Small Business Should Run on Macs, which included a profile of me and my law firm. This article includes discussions of most of the major advantages Macs offer versus PCs, and it includes profiles of several other businesses as well. If your firm is not already using Macs, you should consider the following factors and make the switch:

Industrial Design

iLife’s Surprising Business Uses

Ability to Run Windows Apps If Necessary

Return on Investment

Security

Time Machine

iWork

Ability to Run Microsoft Office

Cheaper Licensing Fees for Servers

Because It’s a Mac

This article included the following quotes from me:

"I got tired of wasting time and money dealing with one problem after another with our PCs and network. It seemed that we were having at least one issue a week that was affecting our ability to most effectively represent our clients, and that was not acceptable."

"Anything that can be done on a PC can be done on a Mac, and usually faster, better, and more enjoyably."

"There are a lot of stories of people who have switched from a PC to a Mac, but you don’t find anybody that has switched back, other than one or two odd examples. There’s a reason for that: life is so much easier with a Mac" :: Ben Stevens